A Woman's Place is Speaking up in Wales (Cardiff Meeting next week)

[PlonitbatPlonit]

Just wanted to see who is going to this, and let Mumsnetters know it is happening if you didn't already. It's going to be a great meeting I think - with a choir singing too!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-womans-place-is-speaking-up-in-wales-tickets-43752975327

crisp, this is from welsh women's aid's recent statement on transgender inclusion:

We support the need for full discussion about the impact of proposed reforms and for consultation with women’s services, including on how proposals will impact on existing exemptions which allow for single sex services and on the need for disaggregated data to monitor sex and gender-based discrimination

For instance scottish domestic violence refuge's and welsh womens aid, have explicitly stated support for trans women, and welcome trans women, and have been welcoming trans women for a long time, they are the kinda experts on this,and don't rely on projection and supposition, and this hasn't caused any significant problems, and they have stated explicitly those that argue against including trans women into same sex spaces are entirely wrong.

They don't have a choice. Any choice has been legislated and funded away. They have also said any MRA activity they will deal with when it happens. How they will do that is any ones guess? Any suggestions how they would? Canada and America are listening?

Here is the Transgender Inclusion Statement from Welsh Women's Aid. It looks as though they, too, are in favour of a full discussion and consultation:

Welsh Women’s Aid promotes an intersectional approach, recognising the unique experiences of survivors of abuse and the ways in which difference and disadvantage may help or hinder access to support, safety and justice. Difference such as age, sex, gender, class, ethnicity, ability and sexuality intersect to inform lived experiences and these factors can further reinforce conditions of inequality and exclusion. This means that sex and gender-based violence can also be connected to factors such as ethnicity, age, class, disability and sexuality. Specialist services are committed to anti-discriminatory practice and to address the intersecting inequalities experienced by women and men, when delivering support services.
Welsh Women’s Aid’s transgender policy (updated in 2016) commits to supporting the realisation of rights for trans people, and the delivery of trans inclusive services and support, on the basis of self- identification. In Britain, more than a quarter of trans people in a relationship in the last year faced domestic abuse from a partner. Specialist services in Wales receive policy guidance, training and support to ensure trans people who have experienced abuse are supported to access services that best meet their needs. This means that anyone identifying as needing women-only or men-only support services (e.g. refuges) or as needing any form of support and advocacy in the community, should be offered a service that meets their need for support to access safety and to recover from abuse.
Welsh Women’s Aid recognises that all forms of violence against women share characteristics that are linked to gendered social norms and expectations. Providing a gender-responsive service that is sensitive to the gendered dynamics of violence is a crucial component of specialist services. As such, this includes offering women-only services where needed, providing safe spaces that are only accessed by women, and putting all survivors of abuse at the centre of the response provided.
Welsh Women’s Aid recognises the global and national evidence that perpetrators of violence towards women and men are, in the vast majority of cases, men, and that violence against women, including domestic abuse and sexual violence, is a cause and consequence of inequality between women and men. Victimisation and perpetration of such abuse reflects and reproduces the gender order, and is a fundamental barrier to achieving equality between women and men.
Welsh Women’s Aid supports the continuing need for the provision of specialist services that offer women-only or BME-only support, which is vital to alleviating violence against women, as a form of discrimination, and which is lawful under the Equality Act 2010. This doesn’t detract from the need for support, safety and justice for all survivors of abuse.
Welsh Women’s Aid welcomes proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act to ensure that current processes to change birth certificates and other identity documents operate as smoothly as possible without pathologising or discriminating against trans people. We are committed to working with our sister umbrella organisations in the UK and with other equality organisations in Wales to ensure that any new processes are appropriate, fair and have no unintended consequences. Trans people’s rights and women’s rights are human rights which intersect, and we stand united against our shared experiences of misogyny and male violence. We support the need for full discussion about the impact of proposed reforms and for consultation with women’s services, including on how proposals will impact on existing exemptions which allow for single sex services and on the need for disaggregated data to monitor sex and gender-based discrimination.

Cross post

Presumably, being guided by the experts, Crispbuttyfan is also in favour of a full discussion with Women's groups - just like the Feminists.

Crisp

There are press reports of misuse of the law. No doubt this is bullshit. We will not thank you for saying that. And round and round we will go. Men's rights are more important than women's rights. We get it. And yet you want us to be allies despite the never ending sound of shut up ringing in our ears.

www.themaven.net/theresurgent/api/amp/theresurgent/erick-erickson/here-s-the-abuse-we-warned-about-x-yrtY8yE0qYcr5U30kHGg?full=1&__twitter_impression=true

mustreadalaska.com/transgender-files-complaint-shelter-abused-women/

crispbuttyfan you may have missed my position on this then:
I don't consent to sharing sex segregated space with people of the opposite sex to me, whether they are harmless or not.

There is more to women's objections than just the very rational fear of harm from men.

I don't consent to being forced to change or undress with male people, and I object to their false and forced categorisation of ME as belonging to the same group as them.

They share NONE of the critical characteristics with me that other women do and I share none of the characteristics they deem essential for a shared category with them.

Their perceived right to be wherever I am breaches my right to be away from them. We both deserve the right to public services but we do not have the right to force our presence upon those of the opposite sex in intimate spaces.

I am female. I will continue to demand that society and the law recognise me as fundamentally and irrevocably different from every male person. My sex is entirely different from any transwoman's gender identity and its time people respected that position.

Absolutely agree @BarrackerBalmer

We support the need for full discussion about the impact of proposed reforms and for consultation with women’s services, including on how proposals will impact on existing exemptions which allow for single sex services and on the need for disaggregated data to monitor sex and gender-based discrimination.

I'm so pleased to read this from Welsh Women's Aid.

Assuming Welsh WA works like English WA, it's a kind of umbrella charity and each local WA is an independent charity. It's a bit like a franchise - national WA provides lots of support and guidance and sets certain standards. Local charities get to use the name WA and get to access lots of support and guidance as long as they meet the standards, but they hold their own budget and are free to tailor services to the people they serve locally.

Since austerity kicked in (or maybe before), the government (national and local) have been increasingly outsourcing their statutory duties to vulnerable people to charities. WA, especially local services, are reliant on government funding. They have to put in frequent bids for short term contracts and in order to get the money they have to tailor their offer to the government's requirements.

If the council says they are inviting bids for the provision of DV services for women, men and trans people, and you want to continue to be able to offer services for women, then you find a way to also offer services to men and trans people.

IME, to date WA have managed to do this very well without ever subjecting women to mixed sex environments or male front-line staff.

So much of this is down to funding. It's far cheaper to just bung everyone in together. G4S could undoubtedly put in a lower bid.

There was a recent series on radio 4 about charities which is well worth a listen, especially episode 2 - Service Delivery.

So let me get this straight, womens aid put out a statement explicitly stating support for trans inclusion and GRA self-id, and still it is being respun to fit a different narrative. riiight.

Yes it's true they also state more discussions are needed, but they mean fact based good-faith discussions, not the type for instance groups like WPUK are seeking, where they refuse to engage with groups like stonewall or any other lgbt/trans groups that offer a counter view point. Literally anytime somebody offers a countering view it is shut-down and painted as gaslighting.

Everything is endlessly painted as gaslighting if it doesn't fit into the gender-crit, transphobe ideology.

It's so transparently childish.

Heres some scottish womens aid stuff too...

athousandflowers.net/2018/02/01/we-asked-womens-aid-centres-if-theyre-trans-inclusive-and-heres-what-they-said/

"Yes it's true they also state more discussions are needed, "

good, glad you said that.

Why should WPUK speak with 'pro-trans' groups, when WPUK are about womens rights, not about removing rights from trans people?

Why is anything pro-woman spun as anti-trans?

do words just mean nothing to you, crispbuttyfan?

"inclusion"

Do you know what you mean by that? Inclusion in what, exactly? My daughters birthday party guest list? In any service with a specific arrangement of a particular set of two vowels and three consonants for no apparent reason?

None of us, not one, want transpeople excluded from society or all services.

And yet ALL of us are at one point or another excluded, quite fairly, from groups and services to which we do not belong and to which we are not entitled. Which is exactly as it should be.

What, exactly, do you think are the areas in which transpeople should be excluded and included?

Without explanations and definitions, characteristics and reasons, it all begins to resemble white noise.

Welsh women's Aid are very carefully saying this:

We support the need for full discussion about the impact of proposed reforms and for consultation with women’s services

• Women's voices MUST be heard because this impacts them

including on how proposals will impact on existing exemptions which allow for single sex services

• Currently we can and do exclude all males legally for women's benefit. If this changes it impacts women and their voices, again, must be heard

and on the need for disaggregated data to monitor sex and gender-based discrimination

• sex and gender are not the same thing and we MUST record and monitor BOTH of them to track discrimination

In other words, they are saying we cannot substitute gender identity for sex because they are clearly not the same thing, and attempting to do so will impact women, whose voices must be heard on this issue.

BarrackerBarmer I'm not sure that Crisp accepts that humans are sexually dimorphic. They never answer when I ask if they do anyway...

Biology is so last century. If you stick to that sort of outdated thinking you will be on the wrong side of history

Barrackbarmer, thats just yet another attempt to re-spin an explicitly and unequivocal support for trans women, and GRA self-id, into more misdirection. I know merely pointing it out, will result in more examples, but still....

I very much doubt trans organisations like Stonewall, Mermaids, Gendered Intelligence, ATH are interested in a good faith dialogue with WPUK.

Please engage properly crisp
If I've misdirected, and I obviously think I haven't, can you tell me HOW?

What do YOU think they mean by needing disaggregated data to monitor sex and gender?

To me I hear that they want to DISAGGREGATE
the sex data
from the gender data
so that both variables can be monitored independently

If you can help me see how I've misinterpreted that, and what you think they actually mean should be disaggregated instead then help me out, I beg you.

Otherwise I feel like this conversation goes

me: 2+2=4
you: Nope. You just spun that to meet your own agenda

"Nope" isn't a compelling argument.

Haven't you noticed that when people ask you what you mean, you refuse to explain, yet we go to some lengths to try to break down our reasoning on our part?

@Ereshkigal:
"I very much doubt trans organisations like Stonewall, Mermaids, Gendered Intelligence, ATH are interested in a good faith dialogue with WPUK."
Quite. It has all been "#nodebate" end of, right up until recently. But now that WPUK is taking off in a big way and more and more women are finding their way to Mumsnet FWR, there are articles in the braver mainstream press, and women are realising, meeting and talking together - suddenly it's DARVO - Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

crispbuttyfan
Yes it's true they also state more discussions are needed, but they mean fact based good-faith discussions, not the type for instance groups like WPUK are seeking, where they refuse to engage with groups like stonewall or any other lgbt/trans groups that offer a counter view point.
Are you not aware that it's Stonewall and the other trans groups that are refusing to engage in debate?

old crone, they merely refusing to engage in bad-faith debate, WPUK are still trying to stoke fear by suggesting Self- id GRA relates to sex-segregated spaces, and this will cause harm to women.

None of this is based in any fact whatsoever, so how can you debate wilful misdirection?

The simple fact places like WPUK push an entirely different narrative to what the Equality act is well established and understood to mean.

Stick to facts, debates would be welcome, stick to misdirection, misinformation, and denigration..... not so much..

WPUK are requesting respectful, fact-based debate. No spin, no misdirection: it’s very clearly stated.

Women’s Aid also request this, therefore they are in agreement.

Now you say you, too, want fact-based debate. Can we then assume that you also agree with WPUK?